The Shop

hours talking to Luke Perdue.”

Jolie knew the story well. A few hours into the hostage situation, Chief Akers had persuaded Luke Perdue to throw out his gun. Luke must have seen one of the snipers and panicked. Standing in the doorway, he’d held Kathy Westbrook in the crook of his arm to use her as a human shield.

Both snipers fired simultaneously. Luke Perdue took a round dead center in the shallow triangle of eyes and nose. That bullet came from the sniper on top of Stearing Automotive. The other sniper, the one on the railroad car, missed his shot. His bullet took a downward trajectory through Perdue’s jaw and obliterated Kathy Westbrook’s frontal lobe.

“Jim yelled for them to hold their fire, but they didn’t listen. Poor woman—he said she was there in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

The Starliner Motel was a regular stop on Kathy Westbrook’s medical sales route. She was headed to her room when Luke Perdue popped up out of nowhere, put a gun to her head, and forced her inside.

Nobody knew why he did it.

“You don’t know what Jim went through the last month. He blamed himself for that woman’s death. Even though he knew he did everything right. But late at night, you know? It creeps back in. He shot himself last night, but he was dead before that. He couldn’t live with what happened.”

“You say he shot himself?”

“That was a mistake. What I meant to say was someone shot him.”

“Oh. I guess I misheard. Still. I can see why he might do that. Kill himself. You yourself said how depressed he was. If he did kill himself, it would be so unfair. To you, to your children. You have kids, right? They’re both grown?”

She nodded.

“Can you talk for the mic?”

“Okay. Yes, I have two kids.”

“You know what? If my husband killed himself, I know what I’d do.” If? God, you’re such a liar. “I’d make it look like something else, like somebody killed him. I wouldn’t hesitate for one minute. I don’t have kids, but if I did, I’d do it for their sake.”

Jolie could see the wheels turning. Cagey. Then Maddy surprised her. “You’re damn right I did it. And I’d do it again.”

Maddy gave her statement.

Once she’d made her decision, Maddy was anxious to explain.

Her husband had called her from the Starliner Motel. He’d told her he was going to kill himself, and she pleaded with him not to. She heard the sound of the gunshot. She raced over, running two red lights to get there.

Maddy told Jolie she’d made up her mind standing in the doorway of room nine. Nobody else was around. Nobody heard the shot. She was alone with her husband of twenty-four years, except it wasn’t her husband lying on the bed anymore.

She thought about her two adult children, what they’d think. She thought about the funeral, law enforcement coming from all over the state—the hero’s funeral for a fallen cop. And yes, she thought about his life insurance policy. She thought about how she’d meet her bills now that her husband was gone.

She sat on the one chair in the room and cried. And then she went to work.

A cop’s wife, Maddy knew all about gunshot residue. Jim Akers had shot himself in the temple—not through the mouth. Already it looked like a homicide. She cleaned up the gunshot residue on his hands with a moist towelette from her purse—the sharp alcohol-and-perfume scent Jolie had smelled in the bathroom wastebasket. Maddy took his gun because he’d shot himself with it. She took his backup gun because she might as well make a clean sweep. She took his phone to be on the safe side.

Maddy stared into the middle distance, her eyes filling with tears. “Now everyone will know.”

Jolie held out a box of tissues. Maddy waved it away, visibly panicked. “I need to call my kids. I need to tell them before they find out some other way.”

“Just a few more questions,” Jolie said soothingly, “and we can wrap this up. You want something to drink?”

Maddy Akers nodded. Her pretty face showed the strain. “Coffee? With some cream?”

Jolie went back to the coffee machine and poured her a cup. She reached for the packets of cream in the jar by the coffeemaker, then thought better of it and pulled out her own stash of Shamrock half-and-half. She felt for Maddy. She understood what Maddy was going through, as few others could.

A cop’s suicide, and the anguish of the wife he left behind.

In this one way, they were sisters.

10 LANDRY

A baby boomer, Landry grew up with television. He had two brothers and a sister who fought over what to watch. They were raised together in a fifth-wheel trailer, living on or near the back side of horse racing tracks all over the west. Not a lot to do in downtimes, so his siblings fought over the TV remote. To Landry, it was just so much white noise, but he’d grown accustomed to the space it filled up.

After Kristal was born, he became more particular about what they watched as a family—the History Channel or Discovery mostly.

Today, the TV was turned to National Geographic while Landry went through the tabloids.

He knew a lot more about Brienne Cross now. She was unknown until she appeared on America’s Newest Star, which helped her single, “Stealthy Lovin’,” make it to the top of the country charts. She appeared in some movies and released a Grammy-winning country album, Marfa Lights. When she became a judge on America’s Newest Star, Brienne became an even bigger celebrity. Eventually this led to her own reality show, Soul Mate.

Landry had gone out and bought up every celebrity magazine with Brienne Cross on the cover. He’d printed up reams of information from TMZ and sites like it. Her death still generated publicity all these weeks later. The family had yet to arrange for a burial; for some reason there had been a holdup at the medical examiner’s office in LA. This created a great deal of hysteria. People wanted to see America’s Princess squared away. They wanted a big funeral they could all participate in from their living rooms. Half the tabloids hinted at a conspiracy theory.

He read about the lone survivor, Nick Holloway. Landry had been briefed about the survivor one day later, after he had gone to Salida, Colorado, to carry out the rest of the mission. The sheriff’s cars racing by on Castle Creek Road had distracted them from going back into the house and checking everywhere.

A black mark on Landry’s once-pristine record.

But lucky for Nick Holloway.

They’d let it go. A reporter for Esquire wasn’t important in the scheme of things.

Nick Holloway was a lucky man.

Back to Brienne Cross. The Internet generated lots of stories, but most of them harped on the same themes. They concentrated either on her extreme behavior, or the idea that in most ways she was just like regular people. For example, she liked Burger King. Apparently, the idea that she was just like a regular person was very important to the people who read the fan magazines.

There was little point in reading this garbage, so he just looked at the photos—inhaled them. Even the ones where Brienne was featured as the “worst dressed” celeb for the week. In fact, he liked these photos best because he could see a little more of her as a person. Her inner conflict showed on her face; she knew she was dressed like a trailer park hooker. He wondered why she did it. In the photos she would look at turns tentative, defiant, and worried. Sometimes, it was clear she’d made a clothing mistake but was going out there anyway.

He admired that.

“Anyone who has ever had a personal encounter with a Florida cottonmouth knows where it got its name,” the announcer on National Geographic said.